Selection of Equipment Service Option, Estimation of Equipment Maintenance Costs, and Comparative Costs Analysis, Brooke Army Medical Center, Fort Sam Houston, Texas

Abstract

Abstract : Due to the increasing cost of health care, it behooves health care administrators to continue to look for ways of doing business cost-effectively without jeopardizing quality of care or limiting access to care. The purpose of this study was to: 1. Develop a decision making model that could be easily used by managers to evaluate and select appropriate service options. 2. Develop a maintenance cost estimation model. 3. Evaluate the efficiency of Brooke Army Medical Centers (BAMC) equipment management program. To address the first concern, the JUDGE model was used to breakdown decision into a list of attributes that influence what action would be ultimately taken. With regard to maintenance costs estimation, a retrospective study, based on a sample of 119 observations from Brooke Army Medical Center s (BAMC) property accounting system, was done to determine if there was a statistically significant difference in maintenance costs based on service option, equipment age, acquisition cost, equipment type and usage rate. As for the comparative costs analysis, performance ratios were utilized to evaluate the efficiency of BAMC in comparison to two other medical centers. Overall, this study showed that cost-effective equipment management techniques could be employed to monitor maintenance costs.